


The Secrets We Keep (Even From Ourselves)

by Processpending



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Caring team, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug, Malcolm Bright Whump, Pregnant Reader, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:47:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21567877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Processpending/pseuds/Processpending
Summary: Things had been going so well between you and Malcolm. You were married, he was getting better and you were pregnant.But as your pregnancy progresses, old anxieties rear their head and you turn to Gil, hoping he can help Malcolm reclaim the hard-won progress before it's too late.
Relationships: Malcolm Bright/Reader
Comments: 12
Kudos: 92





	The Secrets We Keep (Even From Ourselves)

You were nervous and if the slight tremble in Malcolm’s hand was anything to go by, so was he. You’d had Dani and JT over for dinner before, Gil at least twice a month since you’d gotten married nearly a year ago. So tonight it shouldn’t be any different. Except it was.

The buzzer goes off and Malcolm pauses on his way to the door to press a kiss to your cheek. “It’ll be good.” 

“Are you trying to reassure me or yourself?” You tease.

“Both.” He flashes a smile over his shoulder and you hear him letting your guests up. Soon the room is filled with retellings of the latest cases and all the details Malcolm downplayed and overplayed. It’s familiar and reassuring and for most of dinner you’re able to forget. It’s Malcolm’s spasming hand that brings you back, resting so quietly where utensils once waited, the crackling as he tries to ease the shaking is politely ignored, everyone present all too familiar with the tic.

You don’t acknowledge the trembling, don’t try to take his hand in yours, don’t try to stifle the tremor; rather you lay your hand, palm up, next to his, an invitation. You feel his hand slip into yours, accepting the silent offer of reassurance as his fingers skitter against yours.

“We,” Malcolm starts, glancing to you for either permission or reassurance, “have something we wanted to share.” You can tell Gil knows, maybe even Dani and JT, but they won’t take this from him.

“(Y/N)’s pregnant. Three months to the day.” Malcolm turns the full warmth of his smile on you as he says the last part. You’d both waited, counting the days and every twinge, fearing it was too good to be true. You’d even hesitated to make dinner plans for tonight of all nights, as though putting it into the universe was as good as a taunt. You had family dinners all the time anyway, it just happened to fall on tonight, you’d reasoned.

As one, Dani, JT and Gil rise, pulling you from your seats and passing you around for embraces and congratulations. It’s as Gil is clasping Malcolm for a second time do you peek over Dani’s shoulder, noting the stillness of Malcolm’s hands. Maybe things _would_ be ok.

_Five months later…_

Your words played over and over in Gil’s mind as he watched Malcolm study their board. At the time Gil had taken Malcolm’s absence and your arrival as a coincidence. Until you’d asked to speak to him privately. In his office. _He’s getting worse, it hasn’t been this bad since he told Martin we were getting married_. Gil remembered how close he’d come to pulling him off cases before he got himself killed. 

Gil had tried to reassure you that it wasn’t nearly that bad, that he’d been keeping an eye on him and - _He’s not eating. He’s not_ able _to eat._ Those words had been haunting Gil for the past week. Before you’d even gotten married you’d spent _months_ finding recipes and ingredients that even Malcolm’s sensitive stomach could handle. The kid had put on weight, lost that abandoned puppy look that’d concerned everyone who encountered him. Gil would even dare to say the kid looked heathy. 

Watching Malcolm unguarded, and with enlightened eyes, Gil notices the changes that he should have seen long ago. How long had you waited to come to him? How bad had things gotten at home? Gil tried to think back to the most recent monthly dinner...Malcolm had food on his plate, but that didn’t mean he’d actually _eaten_ any of it. 

It’s hard to tell just how bad the damage is through those ridiculous suits he insists on wearing. Dani and JT stroll into the conference room, the moment Bright hears them Gil watches the careful facade resume, Malcolm straightens, that goofy smile pulling his mouth. 

Gil decides then and there that he’ll talk to Malcolm, he’ll tell him to take a few days and send him home to you. Hopefully a few good meals in his belly and Gil’s fatherly advice about whatever is plaguing him will be enough. It has been in the past, so why not now?

“There you are, thought we were gonna have to go without you.” JT starts as soon as Gil walks through the door.

“We’ve got the guy.” Any other day, a thrill would go through Gil at those words, and it still does, except his eyes slide to Malcolm who looks like a yawn would knock him over. He notices then the casual way Malcolm is bracing himself on the table, either too tired to keep himself up on his own or knowing that if he sat down he’d fall asleep. And only terrors await him there. _He’s back to the restraints. I...I can’t even share a bed with him anymore. He won’t_ let _me. I came home and he’d set an entire other bed up, Gil. Then he_ apologized _that I couldn’t have ours since the wall mounts were reinforced there._

When’s the last time you slept kid? Gil doesn’t say the words aloud, instead he tucks them into his pocket, knowing there’s no hope of pulling Malcolm from the case now, not when they’re this close. He knows the address and will show up regardless of Gil sending him home or leaving him behind. Experience has taught Gil nothing if not that it’s better to keep a breaking Bright in sight.

~ ~ ~

Gil smiles, surveying his team, they’d gotten the guy and no one had gotten hurt. Out the window Gil watched as JT wrangles the suspect into the vehicle on the street, turning back to the room he watches Bright talking to Dani with an animation Gil hadn’t realized had been slowly tapering away in recent months. 

Malcolm follows Dani as she trudges towards the steps, wishing the adrenaline wasn’t fleeing her body already, she needed it to get down the many flights of stairs between her and rest. And food. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten, they’d been so caught up in this case.

She doesn't realize Malcolm has fallen silent beside her, his rambling a nice static to her tired mind, until she sees a shadowed form go plunging past her, the dull thud of flesh impacting building flooding her with focusing adrenaline once more.

“ _Bright!”_ Gil’s heart drops at the sound of his kid’s name torn from Dani’s lips, the stairwell too far and too close all in one moment. Dani is crouched over Malcolm’s crumpled form on the landing below, the kids slack body nearly sending Gil down the stairs in a similar fashion. 

Long minutes pass until the ambulance arrives, the call for an officer down cluttering the airwaves with questions but all Gil can think is how he’s going to explain this to you. You’d trusted him, like Malcolm trusted him and the only place that got him is broken and bleeding in a stairwell.

~ ~ ~

“I thought (Y/N) had figured the whole eating thing out? Hell, the kid was looking downright pudgy a few months ago.” You’re sure JT wouldn’t have spoken if he’d known you were near. But the memory makes you smile, Malcolm had come home, practically bouncing as he stripped off his suit jacket. 

_“Notice anything?” He couldn’t contain his smile, a playful glint in his eye as he turned first on way then the other, arms spread wide before you._

_“That you’re incredibly handsome?” You quirked a suggestive eyebrow at him, his smile infectious._

_“I’m_ pudgy. _JT called_ me _pudgy_!" _The words are said with a laugh that you’re helpless not to follow. It’s then you notice the slightest of curves straining against his tucked dress shirt. Pudgy was so far beyond overstatement it was ridiculous, but it wasn’t the word, it was what it meant. Malcolm could, and was, eating pain free. And JT had noticed and cared enough to tease. You pulled Malcolm down onto the couch with you, undoing his buttons one at a time._

_“Pudgy you say?” A mock serious tone, “I better see for myself.”_

Your breath shudders at the memory, drawing the team’s attention.

“(Y/N).” Gil turns from where he’d been pacing at JT’s call, the apology clear in your name.

“He was so proud when you told him that. He-” You can’t finish, the words lost in tears. You feel arms wrap around you, pressing your side into someone’s front. You’re surprised at the unfamiliar body, eyes opening to find JT was the one who’d kept you from collapsing.

“Only he would.” He shakes his head as he says the words, but this close you can see his eyes clouded with concern. “We’ll get him out of here and then you can work on that again.” He offers you a smile and you all pretend you’re not clinging to the hope that not only will Malcolm get out of there, but that you can reach that good place again.

~ ~ ~

“(Y/N)? What’re you-” The words are slurred and your eyes dart to the IV bags hanging by your husband’s bed.

“It’s just something to help with the pain, take the edge off. I made sure they didn’t give him anything to sleep but he was agitated when they brought him in.” Gil soothes your fears. You move to his bedside, trying to keep more tears from spilling even as your babe turns somersaults in your stomach. 

“Mrs. Bright?” Somehow you’d missed the doctor in the room. “I’m Dr. Smith, I’m your husband’s doctor.” You smile and try to keep your focus on him, but your eyes keep sliding their way back to Malcolm and how small he looks in the bed. The shadows in his eyes and the hollows of his cheeks all the more severe. 

“He was brought in for falling down the stairs, he suffered a few bruised ribs and a sprained wrist. His shoulder and hip are pretty bruised and will be tender for a while.” He waits until you pull your eyes back to him and you know he hasn’t told you the worst of it yet and some small part of you wishes you didn’t have to hear it. 

You nod, forcing yourself to hold the doctor’s eyes even as you feel Malcolm’s boring into you, fighting the haze so he can coble together another brittle argument of how _fine_ he is.

“I was informed that he has certain eating restrictions but he was showing signs of severe malnutrition. It seems the adrenalin leaving his body caused an adverse reaction and plummeted his blood sugar, causing the collapse.” Your eyes flutter closed as you breathe in deep, one hand rubbing your heavy belly as you try to soothe the babe within.

“Maybe we should sit down.” Gil’s suggestion isn’t really a suggestion as you already feel his arm around your waist, guiding you to the nearest chair, Malcolm watches with a look that says he should be the one steadying you. 

“We’ve got him on IV fluids to help get his levels back up but,” Dr. Smith’s glances flit from you to Gil to Malcolm before coming to rest back on you, “we do offer in house treatment.” You feel the bile rising up and are helpless to stop it as you lean forward, retching.

~ ~ ~

“They’re keeping him overnight but Gil convinced them to let you take him home in the morning if his levels have evened out.” Dani wets another paper towel as you try to control the flip in your stomach as she delivers the news. You swallow hard, nodding as you turn that update over in your head. 

You’re sure Dani wouldn’t mind running you home, just long enough to grab a few things to get you through the night. As though reading your mind Dani supplies, “I’m taking you home. Gil, JT and I will stay with him tonight, we won’t let anything happen to him.” You turn, protest on your lips. “You need rest, both of you.” Dani pointedly looks down to your stomach and you breathe deep again, knowing she’s right and hating every word of it.

~ ~ ~

“I can’t do this.” The words are clear, jerking Gil from his thoughts. His head snaps up, he straightens from where his elbows were resting on his knees. Gil waits, knowing Malcolm well enough to let him sort himself out before he tries to ask for help.

“What if…” There it is, the fear Gil had been waiting to rear its ugly head. 

“Macolm, that’s not even a possibility.” Malcolm’s head lolls toward him, eyes filled with hopeful reservation. “You aren’t Martin. You did the right thing all those years ago, saving me, putting a stop to his madness.”

“But-”

“Kid, I know you’re smart enough to know, _really know_ , that whatever you say next isn’t true. You have (Y/N) and me and Dani and JT. Do you really think any of us would let you even come close to doing something like that?” Malcolm smiles at that and Gil sees the doubt he’s instilled in Malcolm’s fear.

“If you need some time off, take it, you’ll have your spot back on the team whenever you’re ready to come back. You’re going to make a great dad to your kids.” Malcolm smiles widely at that and Gil knows the fear isn’t fully gone, that this, like all Malcolm’s struggles, will take time. But the important part has been done, he knows he has family in them and they believe, even if no one else does, that he’s _nothing_ like Martin.

“ _Kids_ huh?” Malcolm teases and Gil knows a joke about his age and being able to count is coming.

“I see the way you look at her. _Kids."_ The growing blush and bashful grin on Malcolm’s face tells him all he needs to know. 

_Three months later_

You looked tired. You both looked tired. 

But it was the good kind of tired, the kind that came from having an infant in the house. From worry and love, not from lingering terrors.

Malcolm watches as Dani cooes over your son, JT doing his best to keep up his aloof appearance though the moment he spotted that you’d dressed the baby in the onesie made to look like a miniature suit he’d cracked. He’d meant it as a joke, his silent protest at attending the baby shower, but seeing it tonight was too cute even for him.

Gil studies you under the guise of refilling his glass. You’d been slipping him updates on Malcolm just as he’d done for you, passing notes and hopes, in texts and glances. Malcolm had taken a couple weeks off after his swoon, as JT liked to tell it. Long enough to ease your fears enough he didn’t send you into early labor. Long enough to invite you back into bed, though that text had taken Gil longer to unpack and more blushing than he’d ever admit. 

_“Arroyo.”_

_“Gil. You have Malcolm?” It’s only years of experience that keep his features neutral and his tone even._

_“Yes.” He knows, the tone of your voice, the timing, the fact that you’re calling_ him _when Malcolm stands mere feet away from him, having only spared a glance at his phone ringing._

_“I assume you know why I’m calling.” Even in labor you can tease, though your voice is strained and his stomach drops. It’ early, not even ten in the morning, which means…._

_“You waited.” The silence is damning, the soft noise of pain that isn’t fully muffled has him grateful Malcolm is preoccupied with JT or else he would’ve seen everything flash across his face._

_“Good thing he’s not a profiler.” Gil huffs a laugh. “For his safety and my sanity. You’ll get him there?” Gil eyes Malcolm. He’d carefully watched Malcolm for any signs the fear from that day in the hospital was gnawing again, but he’d been trying so hard to be better._

_“Sounds good. I’ll have Dani come pick that up.”_

_“He’s got no idea does he?” You know your husband far too well._

_“Nope.” Gil smiles and hangs up. It’s one look to Dani, who glances at a still oblivious Malcolm and smiles softly, with a nod to Gil she’s out the door to collect you._

_“We got a case?” JT interrupts himself._

_“Malcolm.” It starts immediately, Gil having rarely seen the tremors in his hand this bad._

_Gil fears the ride to the hospital may be Malcolm’s undoing, the crackling of his bones as he tries to control his spasms fill the car and for the first time Gil thinks the sound may make him sick._

_“What are you doing? We have to get (Y/N).” Malcolm’s panic fills the car as Gil pulls over._

_“Dani’s picking her up. Left even before we did.”_

_“Then we have to get to the hospital.” Gil studies the man before him, wondering how that collected little boy that’d saved him all those years ago had been lost._

_“I’ll get you there in plenty of time. Kid, look at me.” Malcolm turned eyes drowning in fear on Gil. “Dani has her, I’ve got you, JT is meeting us there._ We’ve _got you.”_

_By the time they reach the hospital Malcolm’s hand still trembles where it rests in his lap, but the spasming tic is gone, nervous tremors in their wake._

You wrap your arms around Malcolm from behind, resting your cheek on his back you let your hands settle on his belly, meeting Gil’s eyes. He was caught, but it was what you were showing him, the progress Malcolm had made. He was holding his son in hands that weren’t shaking, looking pudgy. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is seriously one of my favorite shows. I mean the witty banter, the ingenious story line and the whump galore! Not to mention, have you seen Malcolm? 
> 
> This popped into my head and is one of the fastest fics I've written, like in head, onto page and then here in a day and a half. So there's that. I hope it was adequate, hell I'd even take mediocre. Thoughts, comments and random outbursts greatly appreciated!


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